A team of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say. The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, is such a new discovery that it’s … [Read more...]
Health Assessment and Prognostics of Electronic Products: An Alternative to Traditional Reliability Prediction Methods
Introduction Traditional handbook-based reliability prediction methods for electronic products include Mil-Hdbk-217, Telcordia SR-332 (formerly Bellcore), PRISM, FIDES, CNET/RDF (European), and the Chinese GJB-299. These methods rely on analysis of failure data collected from the field and assume that the components of a system have inherent constant failure rates that are … [Read more...]
LED Thermal Standardization: A Hot Topic
Introduction The main topic of the article is how to cope with the increasing need for standardization of thermal characterization of LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) and LED-based products (see Fig.1 showing a typical LED package). The LED-business is growing much faster than analysts predicted five years ago. Unfortunately, the progress in thermal characterization has not kept … [Read more...]
Numerical Simulation of Complex Submicron Devices
Introduction Significant increases in temperature are believed to contribute to losses in reliability and performance, and can present serious complications to thermal management. The net thermal effect depends on a combination of factors related to the feature size, power densities, and material properties. In semiconductor devices, higher heat flux densities can result from … [Read more...]
en Route to a Greener Thermal Technology
It's no surprise. Power levels in the data center keep rising. In fact, the cost of powering the computers in the data center is beginning to exceed the cost of the computers themselves. The computer architects have responded by designing systems that use multi-core processors. These processors can use less energy to perform the same workload as their single-core brethren by … [Read more...]
